


Paint Water

by nwtons



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Artist Baekhyun, Fluff, M/M, Synesthesia, honestly too fluffy for your own good probably tbh when did i become such a sap, jk i;ve always been a sap, literally just fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-18
Updated: 2017-02-18
Packaged: 2018-09-25 07:46:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9809912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nwtons/pseuds/nwtons
Summary: "He guessed my favourite colour on the first try. But between you and me, I didn't even have a favourite colour until he yelled out 'Yellow!'. He was really excited and smiling like a little kid, so I told him he was right, and I haven't seen yellow the same since. It's in everything. I could probably live in it now."





	

**Author's Note:**

> 2nd part of Chromesthesia - http://archiveofourown.org/works/4127472/ but both can be read as separate fics!!! i'm literally 2 years late on this but hey at least i finally managed to write it?? i'm so sorry for being a lazy ass and not writing this sooner but u know what they say, better late than never~
> 
> unbeta'd as always (re: lazy ass)

“Can you talk to me while I paint?”

Chanyeol glances up from the book balanced precariously on his bent knees to stare confusedly at Baekhyun, who has been sitting in front of his canvas, sighing intermittently, for the past hour. The day has been a sickly blue, matching the greyness of the morning sky that has been shedding rain since the tiny hours when they’d had their first cup of coffee for the day. Baekhyun would usually feel chilled to the bone while listening to the soft pit-pat of the drops as they hit the windows, but being in this small room with Chanyeol keeps the iciness at bay.

“Sure?”, he mutters, although he doesn’t really understand how talking would do anything except distract the other boy.

Baekhyun looks down at his socked feet, toes curling against the wooden floor in a nervous habit, before huffing.

“It’s just… your voice, it- I don’t know how to say this... it helps me see what I wanna paint…kinda…”, his voice titters off at the end, falling to no more than a self-conscious whisper. Explaining has always been the hardest part.

He receives a dopey grin in response, though, and Chanyeol sits up straight, his smile stretching from ear to ear.

“So, I inspire you? Am I your muse, Baek~?”, he singsongs, resting his chin on his knees and staring at the other boy with wide eyes, a playful glint in them that makes Baekhyun blush and look away again.

He still smiles, involuntarily, because it’s not like Chanyeol is wrong with that assumption. He hasn’t been able to paint for the past week, too distracted with thoughts of Chanyeol and his heavenly deep voice, which changes fluidly from a crackling, red fire to a calm, orange sunset. Lately, he’s been seeing some cheerful shades of green as well, as if autumn has been giving way to spring, skipping the harsh cold of winter altogether. It makes him spend hours upon hours staring at a blank canvas and wishing, not for the first time, that he could sit Chanyeol down next to him and have that voice wash over him in big waves of inspiration. Now, after a week of not seeing each other properly because of their busy schedules- what with Chanyeol’s shift changes and Baekhyun’s frustration at not being able to make a decent painting- he intends to take advantage of the other boy’s presence and get rid of the art block.

“Is that a yes?”, he asks, even though the answer is more than obvious in the glint of Chanyeol’s eyes, the wideness of his smile, and the way he’s shifted onto the other end of Baekhyun’s couch, leaning over the armrest to smile at him more closely.

Chanyeol nods quickly, short little jerks of his head, and he settles more comfortably into the arm of the couch, scratching his chin in thought before seemingly settling on an idea.

“I can read to you! Do you think that’ll work?”, his cheerfulness is a salmon shade that makes Baekhyun smile back.

At Baekhyun’s nod, he clears his throat and starts from where he left off on the page, voice turning comically serious. He switches between a high-pitch and a dramatic low rumble for the different characters, and an exaggerated British accent when describing a particular scene from a third person point of view. For a while, Baekhyun doesn’t even move to pick up a brush, too busy listening amusedly at the boy’s speeches, but after a few minutes have gone by, he gets his bearings and turns back to the canvas with one last smile thrown over his shoulder, even though Chanyeol’s too busy trying to make him laugh to return it properly.

Chanyeol’s voice is a brick orange when he starts off, swiftly mixing the shade on his palette and dipping a die brush into it, swirling the colour onto the no longer blank canvas. When the taller boy starts acting out a dialogue between the two characters, switching up the voices and accents, Baekhyun sees a touch of olive and a vibrant sun-kissed yellow, and is quick to add them to the surface as well. He switches between reds, yellows, and more and more shades of green as Chanyeol reads on, every so often taking his eyes away from the text before him to glance up at what Baekhyun is doing.

The sun has long ago set by the time Chanyeol flips the book closed, having finished it already. He rolls his shoulders until they release a pleasing crack, and then looks up to meet Baekhyun’s crescent-moon eyes paired with a gummy, rectangular smile.

Baekhyun blinks at him and says, in a small voice, sounding pleased, “Thank you.”

The canvas in front of him is covered in a mixture of colours more stunning than anything Chanyeol has ever seen in any art museum or gallery. It doesn’t really convey any concrete shape, but the colours are so vibrant and they complement each other so nicely that he needs to take a few minutes to appreciate them before he can look away and meet the other’s gaze.

When he does, he sees Baekhyun looking nervously at him, chewing his bottom lip and doing the toe thing again.

“It’s beautiful.”, he says, and the nervous shifting stops, replaced by yet another blush gracing the smaller boy’s cheeks.

Chanyeol breathes a small laugh and shifts on the couch, leaning over the arm rest. “Gimme a kiss~”, he says, and his voice is such a bright yellow that it takes the other boy a minute to snap out of his thoughts to comply.

He leans forward in the chair and presses his lips to Chanyeol’s, parting with a loud smack before running a hand through the other’s soft, white hair. They stare at each other for a few minutes, smiling like the love-sick fools that they often admit they are, and then Chanyeol seems to decide that they’ve spent way too long doing everything _except_ kissing, so he leans forward once more, tipping his face up to press their lips together again.

 “Thank you for helping me paint.”, Baekhyun says in between short pecks, his cheeks cupped by big hands. His voice sounds tentatively gold to his own ears, still a little guarded, but getting there with gradual baby steps.

Chanyeol smiles at him the way he often does, with a quiet fondness that Baekhyun has just recently started to get used to receiving, and he can’t help but kiss him once, twice, three more times, before pulling away reluctantly, just far enough to be able to speak without getting distracted by the other’s closeness.

“You’re cute when you concentrate”, he tells the other boy, delighting in the pleased blush that seems to be permanently splattered across Baekhyun’s cheeks now, and he can’t help but tease, “You do this thing where you poke out your tongue. It’s very distracting.”

Baekhyun squirms under the comments, but he doesn’t move away like he would have done earlier on in their relationship, when every word of praise- of which there have always been plenty, because Chanyeol is incessantly trying to make him combust, it seems- would have sent him spluttering and trying to get as far away as possible to avoid the other seeing him in such a state. Now, he glows under the attention, letting the honey-gold sounds run through him and warm him up inside, as Chanyeol looks at him with nothing short of adoration. He imagines- or hopes- that it’s also what Chanyeol sees reflected back at him when they stare at each other like this.

Chanyeol kisses him again, and pulls away for a second to ask him, “What colour am I right now?”

“Mm… Yellow.”

He doesn’t say that it’s the same shade he’s been seeing for months now, the one he first caught a glimpse of in a crowded bakery long ago, and the one he saw in a sudden, vibrant spurt after their first kiss, when Chanyeol laughed breathlessly before diving back in for more, and the same one he sees every morning when Chanyeol greets him groggily, voice hoarse from sleep but no less beautiful for it, no less shiver-inducing. It’s the yellow he sees with every “Hi” followed by a toothy grin, and every “I’ll see you later” accompanied by a puppy-like pout. He doesn’t say it, but he knows it, and somewhere deep down he suspects Chanyeol knows it, too.

“What kind of yellow?”, Chanyeol demands softly, stroking a thumb underneath the other’s eye.

Baekhyun closes his eyes and smiles, “Like a sunflower.”

He receives a huff in response, and a hand winding into the curly strands of his hair to pet through them, scratching gently at his scalp. Chanyeol presses another quick kiss to his lips before continuing.

“So if I’m a sunflower, does that make you the sun?”, he asks in a whisper.

This close, it sounds like a secret. Something shared between the two of them and no one else, away from the rest of the world.

It makes Baekhyun feel warm.

They look at each other again, faces inches apart, and every time Chanyeol breathes out he can feel the warm huff of air on his skin. “I’d say it’s the other way around.”, he mutters, eyes crinkling at the corners when Chanyeol’s face flushes at the words. It’s not often that Baekhyun manages to make him blush, but when he does it’s very rewarding.

“Hmm, nice one~”, Chanyeol tells him, sounding amused and breathless, with a touch of a blushing peach bleeding through at the edges. He guides Baekhyun closer with hands cupping his cheeks, and kisses him again, deeper this time, for so long that they’re breathless by the time they part.

Chanyeol rubs their noses together and looks at him in a way that makes Baekhyun feel like he’s about to cry, raw with love that he never even imagined he’d be on the receiving end of. When Chanyeol kisses his cheek and moves to mutter something in his ear, words that have often been shared between them in moments like this, Baekhyun sees an explosion of fireworks in every shade of yellow and red and green that one could imagine.

He hopes that Chanyeol can see them too, when he says the words back a moment later, in a soft, vulnerable whisper right into the softness of his neck.

**Author's Note:**

> comments/kudos give me life!! pls ily <3


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